Bullet holes and Scars
by CardinalPerch
Summary: First fanfic.  Oneshot followup to Episode 7.15 "A Thin Line."  Considers Prentiss' state of mind after being shot, especially considering her past trauma.  Contains episode spoilers.  No pairings.  Probably could be rated K , going with T to be safe.


Emily Prentiss leaned heavily against the glass-paned doors. A burning sensation seared through her upper left arm where the Trevor Mills' bullet had torn through only moments before. Her right hand maintained a firm grip on her Glock. She needed to be prepared to return fire in the unlikely event that the Mills managed to make it back down the stairs. Her injured left arm hung limply at her side.

Emily hadn't yet taken time to assess the extent of the damage. She was far more concerned with what was happening upstairs. Morgan and JJ had the Mills cornered. If the team's profile was right, the Mills wouldn't go down without a fight. Emily hadn't hesitated for a second to tell J.J. to leave her and go help Morgan. She was hurt, but she wasn't dying. Emily Prentiss knew what dying felt like, and this wasn't it. She had even briefly considered rejoining her fellow agents upstairs before deciding that she would probably be more of a potentially dangerous liability than a help.

A gun shot rang out from the second floor. Emily's heart stopped for a second. She couldn't stomach the thought of something happening to her friends. Nor did she want to see any harm come to the victim, Hillary Ross. Yet whoever had fired the shot must have missed because Emily could still distinctly hear Ross' screams and the arguing of Morgan and Mills (her blood boiled when she distinctly heard Mills call Morgan a "damn half-breed"). Morgan wouldn't be so calm if something had happened to JJ. Less than a minute later, a second shot sent Emily into a panic once again. Her fears were quickly assuaged as Morgan clambered down the stairs followed by JJ and the victim.

"Prentiss!" Morgan yelled. "Are you alright?"

Emily recognized all too well the look on her friend's face. It was one of overwhelming concern and poorly concealed panic. She had seen that look many times before – at the compound in Colorado, on the side of the road in Lockport, New York, and in the basement of the warehouse in Boston. Derek Morgan was a top-notch agent and fearless to a fault, but, unlike compartmentalization extraordinaire Emily Prentiss, he tended to let his emotions show.

"I'm fine Morgan," Emily insisted.

This was only partially true. Now that her mind was no longer occupied with concern over the fate of her friends, she became aware of the sharp, biting pain in her left arm. She looked down at the injury. The bullet had gone clean through, so that was good, but warm blood flowed from both the entrance and exit wounds, staining the sleeve of her pink sweater.

It was far from the worst injury the Supervisory Special Agent had suffered during her FBI career – the stake in abdomen, the collision with the truck, and the beating administered by the sociopathic cult leader ranked higher on the pain scale – but Emily realized she was definitely going to need some medical treatment. Morgan shot her a skeptical glance as he reached for the radio attached to his Kevlar vest.

"I need an ambulance at 1216 Hunter Drive," he said calmly but firmly. "I have a federal agent down. Gunshot wound to the arm."

Through the steadily increasing pain, Emily rolled her eyes at her partner. "Agent down," sounded a little overdramatic.

After preparing a glass of water for the still-panicked Hillary Ross, JJ left the victim's kitchen to join Derek and Emily.

"We should probably put some pressure on that wound," she suggested. "It is not a good idea to just let it bleed."

Emily let out a faint grunt as Derek began to apply pressure to her arm. "Could you ease up a bit Morgan?" she groaned.

"Sorry Emily," he replied. "I just want to make sure this bleeding is under control."

The ambulance arrived within five minutes. A pair of paramedics rushed to Emily's side. One, a thirty-something male with brown hair in a neat crew cut, used scissors to efficiently cut and remove the left sleeve of her shirt. The second, who looked to be in his early fifties with slightly curly salt-and-pepper hair, assisted Morgan in unfastening the Velcro straps of her Kevlar vest and gently lifting it over her head. Emily couldn't help but steal a glance at her wounded arm. She wasn't shaken by the site of the blood or the slightly mangled look of the skin surrounding the bullet's entry point. She was, however, somewhat surprised by the extent of the bruising. A good portion of her upper arm had turned nasty shades of black, blue, and purple. The first paramedic proceeded to disinfect the wound and bind it tightly in a thick, white bandage. Emily winced slightly as he worked.

"Sorry Agent," he said with a sympathetic smile. "Just trying to get you taken care of here." Emily nodded and offered a half smile in return.

After helping Morgan remove Emily's bulletproof vest, the second paramedic asked Emily to recount the shooting. There wasn't much to recall, she told him. It had all happened before she even had time to register what was going on. She and JJ planned to enter the house through the back door while Morgan covered the front. Emily took the lead with JJ just behind. Through sheer bad luck, Mills happened to be positioned perfectly across from the rear entrance. Emily was struck before she was finished turning the corner.

"Alright, Agent Prentiss, we're going to move you to the ambulance now," the first paramedic said, rising from his crouching position as he finished applying the bandage. "Do you think you can walk?"

"Yeah, I can walk," Emily replied. "But I'm not going to the hospital. It's fine now, I'll be okay."

"I'm afraid that's not an option Agent," the second medic interjected. "It's standard procedure to take all gunshot wound victims to the hospital. Also, judging from the severe swelling and the location of the wound, I'd say there's a good chance that your humerus is partially fractured. You need further medical attention."

"No, honestly I'm fine," she protested. "Thanks for your help, but I don't need…"

"Emily, just shut up." JJ interrupted playfully, smirking at the legendary stubbornness of her friend. "You're going to that hospital if Morgan and I have to force you. Even if we didn't insist, you know that Hotch would."

Emily gave a sigh of defeat and allowed Morgan and the paramedics to help her gingerly to her feet. She obligingly followed as the paramedics led her to a gurney sitting outside the waiting ambulance. The medics loaded her into the back of the vehicle and prepared for departure.

"Hold on a second, we're riding with her," Morgan insisted.

"Don't be ridiculous Morgan," Emily replied. "I keep telling you, I am fine. You two need to stay with the victim."

"Local police are already on it," JJ said. "We're coming."

Emily relented. Morgan elected to ride in the cab with elder medic while JJ hopped in the back with Prentiss and the younger medic.

"You just can't resist, can you Emily?" JJ asked, smirking yet again. "I got beat up on our last case and you had to turn around and steal my thunder by getting shot."

Emily managed a small laugh despite the increasing pain in her arm. "Trust me Jayje, I don't enjoy any of this."

"Agent Prentiss, I need you to lay your arm across your chest and then try not to move it any more after that," the medic said. "If there's a fracture or tissue damage, any movement or weight on the arm will only worsen the injury."

Prentiss did as asked, letting out only a faint groan as the motion sent fresh waves of pain shooting through the limb. Within ten minutes, the ambulance arrived at the local hospital. The medics wheeled Emily into the emergency room where she submitted to an x-ray and MRI. As she awaited the results, Hotch, Rossi and Reid joined Morgan and JJ at her side.

"How are you feeling, Prentiss?" The unit chief asked.

"I'm alright Hotch. Seriously." In truth, she was still in quite a bit of pain, but she wasn't about to admit that to anybody. Emily Prentiss didn't believe in showing weakness, especially since she knew her team was still extremely overprotective of her since her reappeaerance.

"We were worried about you," Reid said in an almost pathetic tone.

"Eh, I knew you'd be alright" a Rossi interjected. "Our Emily Prentiss is one tough kid."

As Rossi shot Prentiss an encouraging smile, a portly, balding doctor entered the room.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Turner," the man said. "I took a look at your scans. It seems you've indeed suffered a partial fracture of the humerus bone as well as some tearing of the surrounding muscle tissue. You'll need to keep the arm immobilized in a sling for at least the next four weeks, otherwise it might not heal properly. You'll also need the wounds examined and redressed every two or three days until they heal over so they don't become infected."

"No field duty for at least the next six weeks. You can still travel, but you'll need to stay back in the office. Those are strict orders," Turner concluded.

"She'll follow them," Hotch responded, before Emily had a chance to protest.

Less than an hour later, Emily had changed into fresh travel clothes, secured her left arm in the black sling provided by Turner, and joined the team for the long cross-country flight back to D.C. En route, she lightly teased a clearly fretting Morgan. Maybe that had been a bit mean, but Morgan seemed to lighten up afterwards. More than anything, Emily wanted Morgan to know that he wasn't at fault for what happened – it was sheer bad luck that Mills happened to be standing where he was as she entered the house. Also, using humor was one of the few ways in which Prentiss was willing to deal with the Doyle trauma.

The team arrived back at the BAU in the early morning hours. After allowing Garcia to fret over her for a few minutes, Emily hopped in a car with Rossi who had insisted on driving her home.

"An Audi?" she asked with a broad smile. "I was expecting a Lamborghini or Ferrari, maybe a Fiat."

"Not everything I own has to be Italian," the senior agent quipped. "Plus, I'm past my sports car days."

When the pair arrived at Prentiss' apartment complex, Emily politely refused Dave's offer to help her carry her things.

"Rossi, I have a bum arm, I'm not completely out of commission," she argued.

"If you insist," Dave replied. "Buona notte!"

Using her right arm, Emily slung her go-bag over her shoulder and climbed the six stories to her apartment. She slid the keys into the lock and entered, making sure to flip on the lights and punch in the security code before throwing her keys and bag onto the entryway table. Sergio greeted her affectionately, rubbing his face against her ankles and purring.

"Hey buddy, I missed you!" she told him.

As she headed for her bedroom, Prentiss paused to consider her reflection in the hallway mirror. The sight of her arm in a sling caught her off guard. Rubbing her hand gingerly over the bandaged area, Emily began to wonder what the scars on her arm would look like when the bullet wounds healed. She supposed she could ask Reid, but the appearance of the healed bullet wound in the young genius's knee was likely distorted by scarring from the reconstructive surgery required to repair his shattered patella. Asking Garcia was out of the question. The shooting four years prior had traumatized the sexiest hacker on the planet, and Emily wasn't going to subject her to those painful memories by inquiring about scars.

As she continued to ponder what the new scars would look like, Prentiss raised her shirt slightly to reveal a nasty eight-inch scar on her lower abdomen – a souvenir from the wooden stake driven into her gut by Ian Doyle and the multiple surgeries required to keep the incident from claiming her life. The abdominal scar wasn't the only reminder of painful moments past. On her chest, the Irish bastard's four-leaf clover remained seared into her skin. Slightly farther down was a memento to the broken mirror glass that gashed her chest during the beating at the Colorado ranch.

For a fleeting moment, Emily Prentiss allowed questions and doubts to enter her mind. As she ran her finger slowly along the abdominal scar, she wondered much longer could she keep this up before it all became too much. Sure, the new wounds in her left arm were relatively minor compared to some past acquisitions. She supposed she should even count herself fortunate to have left California with just a fracture and some damaged muscle. Had the shot wondered a foot or so higher, she could have taken a bullet to the throat or the head. Yet the scars were beginning to add up and Emily wondered how much more punishment her body – and, she thought vaguely, her mind – would have to take before her BAU career came to an end.

Suddenly, she snapped out of her train of thought. Scolding herself silently for her temporary moment of vulnerability, she quickly reconstructed the barriers in her mind and resumed her compartmentalized life. The morning would bring a new day and a new case. Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss was not about to let her scars show, not even for a moment.


End file.
